4. Oscar
Oscar
Islept like a man who had done a good night's work, because I had.
The Jubilee always left me like that, wrung out in the best way, the way a long day on a job site used to leave me when I was doing whatever work I could get.
I came downstairs a little after eight with that pleasant ache still in me, expecting to find Ruby at the counter with her tea and the crossword she pretended she could do in pen. The kitchen was empty. So was the den.
I found her on the back porch.
She was sitting in one of the chairs facing the yard, her back to the door, a mug going cold on the table beside her.
She had a sweater on over what she had slept in, and her hair was loose, and for a second I just looked at her, the set of her shoulders, the way she held herself very still.
She didn’t hear me, or if she did she decided not to turn.
"Morning," I said, stepping out. The boards were cold through my socks. "I was surprised you weren’t in bed still when I woke up."
"Couldn't sleep," she said. She didn't turn around.
"You eat anything?"
"No."
"Okay." The air had a bite to it that the afternoon would burn off. "I'm going to make myself something."
I made eggs. Three of them, scrambled the way I like, with the toast going while I worked the pan.
I sat down at the kitchen table with the plate and a coffee and the good feeling of having a Sunday with nothing to do.
I was two bites in when I heard the porch door open, and then Ruby was standing at the end of the table, looking at me.
I looked back at her. "What?"
"What about me?"
I put the fork down. I genuinely did not understand the question for a second. I followed her eyes to the plate and then it landed. "Oh. I didn't think." I slid the plate a few inches toward the empty chair across from me. "Here, take some, there's plenty—"
"No." She said it quietly, and that was somehow worse than if she had raised her voice.
"That's the problem. I would have made breakfast for both of us. I would’ve never thought to only make it for just me. But you came in here and made yourself eggs knowing full well that I hadn’t eaten.
It never once crossed your mind that I might be hungry too. "
"I asked. You said you didn’t want anything."
"No, you asked if I'd eaten and I told you I hadn’t. I didn’t say I didn’t want to."
I sat there with my eggs cooling in front of me, trying to understand what she was angry about. I was pretty sure it wasn’t about eggs, but what else could it be about? "Ruby, if you're hungry, eat. I can share. I'm not going to fight about a plate of—"
"It's not about the food."
"Then what is it about?"
She crossed her arms. "Just forget about it."
"No, I'm asking. You've been—" I chose my words carefully, the way you choose your footing on a wet beam. "You've been in your own world lately. More and more. And I figured you wanted space. I know Jeremy going to college is a big change for you, so I've been giving you space.”
"There's a difference between giving someone space and not being interested."
"That's not fair."
"I know plenty about what’s not fair,” she said.
"I work fourteen-hour days so you can sit on that porch in a house we built. I don't think anybody could say I'm not interested in this family."
"Oh, you work? You? Like I didn’t--. Like I don’t-- Like everything--.” Her eyes flashed wildly with anger. “What about Ocean City?”
The turn caught me off guard. "What about it?"
"When were you going to tell me about that project? The land, the plans, the contract you're about to lose. I had to hear about it from Adam, at a party, in front of people. We’re in this together, and you couldn’t even tell me about this project. Why?”
"Because it's work." I heard my own voice go flat and defensive and couldn't stop it. "It's a Monday problem. I don't bring you every deal that goes sideways, Ruby, there are dozens of them, you'd never sleep."
"Adam thinks I could help."
"You help?" I scoffed. "Look, I love Adam, but this isn't some little project you can come in and sketch a few ideas on. This isn't some hobby. This is a billion-dollar company with a hundred and forty people on the payroll."
She went very still.
"Right," she said. "Billion-dollar company. That's all you really care about. And you know what? That’s why you’ll lose this project."
She carefully set her cold mug in the sink, and walked out of the kitchen. I heard her on the stairs. I sat there with my three eggs confused and frustrated. My mind spun as I tried to make sense of what just happened. I picked up the plate and threw away the food.
* * *
I was in my office, sometime before noon, catching up on email when Jeremy called. Seeing his name pop up on the screen was the first thing that had made me smile since I got up that morning.
"There he is. How’s my favorite architect?"
"Not yet, Dad. I have to actually graduate first." But I could hear he liked it. "How was the Jubilee? Was Tommy there? How were the desserts?"
"Tommy was there and tried to leave after his one drink," I said with a laugh.
I ran through the entire night for him, describing the food, the people, the music.
He asked about some people, remembered things about others.
In a way it was a lot like talking to Ruby. It was funny how alike they were.
"Hey," he said, "did Mom ever say anything about Fallingwater? I sent her this thing about it reopening."
"She mentioned it." I leaned back. "In the car. Something about a road trip."
"You should take her." He said it easily, the way he said everything. "Seriously, Dad. She's wanted to go her whole life. It's like five hours away. You could make a long weekend out of it."
"That's more of a you-and-your-mom thing," I said. "The two of you can make a trip out of it. I'd just be standing around looking at some old house with the water running through it, wondering why they didn't fix the leak."
Jeremy laughed, because it was the answer he expected, and we moved on. I again thought about how funny it was that they were so alike. So alike that I just said the same thing to two different people in two days.
The doorbell rang, the deep chime filling the halls and echoing through the house. A moment later Ruby's voice came from the front hall, lighter than it had been with me, and then a second voice, lower, that I would have known anywhere. Adam.
Jeremy was telling me about his Architectural Drawing class, but I couldn’t concentrate. Every so often I would hear a voice or a laugh echo down the hall. I needed to know what was going on. What was he telling her about Ocean City?
"Jeremy, I need to call you back."
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah, everything’s fine. Adam just got here. Work thing. Love you. Sorry to cut this short." I was already standing, heading towards the door, when I stopped myself.
What am I doing?
I could hear them down the hall, not the exact words, just the sound. Adam's deep, even cadence and then Ruby answering, or her asking a question. Sometimes her laugh, which made me realize I hadn’t heard a genuine laugh from her in a while.
I stood in the middle of my office like a man who had walked into a room and forgotten why.
I wanted to go down there, but I had no reason to.
It was Sunday, in my own house, and I could not walk into my own kitchen because my wife was in it being shown plans for a project I had told her wasn't hers to worry about.
So I paced. I straightened things on the desk that didn't need straightening. I told myself I was giving them space, which was a word I had apparently decided to wear out this weekend.
The truth was, I could have told her about Ocean City. Maybe I should have. There had been a hundred chances. The hour in the limo alone. But I didn’t. And I knew why.
I hadn't told her because she would have wanted it, and I didn’t want to disappoint her when we lost it.
She loved the shore. She loved exactly that kind of town, the porches and the close families and the streets that smelled like salt air and street food.
If I had described the project to her, she would have lit up the way she used to light up over a set of plans.
And then, when we lost it, I would have to watch it fade from her face, knowing I was the reason the light was gone.
The town didn't want what we had. He had already made two other presentations to them. We had sent our best people down there, and both times they came back rejected. I didn’t have anyone, not one person in my company, who could give a town like Ocean City what it was asking for.
Nobody with the care it needed. Nobody with that kind of creativity. No one with the eye Ocean City needed.
We were going to lose the Ocean City job, and there was nothing I could do about it. So of course I wouldn’t tell Ruby. The last thing I wanted was to disappoint her.